Paul Gregutt

Contributing Editor

Reviews wines from Oregon and Canada.

Contributing Editor Paul Gregutt has been reviewing Pacific Northwest wines for Wine Enthusiast Magazine since 2000, and currently reviews wines from Oregon and Canada. Gregutt's book, Washington Wines & Wineries: the Essential Guide, is now in its second edition and has been released in both paperback and e-book formats. In addition to his work for print, Gregutt writes a well-read blog at www.paulgregutt.com. He and his wife Karen also operate Waitsburg Cottages, vacation rentals in Walla Walla wine country.

This is a full-on, five-grape, Bordeaux-style blend, dense, tight and high-toned. It offers polished flavors of purple and black fruits, cloaked in coffee, smoke, tar and tobacco. The depth and balance suggest further aging until at least 2025.

Tart and textural, the 2013 has the same zippy acids and concentration as the previous vintage, here with fruit flavors of lime, grapefruit and pineapple. The two wines are siblings that reflect the different vintages perfectly. Give the 2013 a slight edge for extra ripeness and minerality.

This is the winery’s superstar Bordeaux-style blend, and one of the defining red wines of the Okanagan. In its youth it is peppery, tannic and tough, with strong herbal flavors, along with pomegranate, cranberry and white raspberry fruit. It’s firmly acidic, lightly toasty, complex and finished with flavors of coffee grounds, cacao, baking spices and smoke. Drink…

Essentially a Bordeaux-style blend (just 4% Syrah breaks the mold), this smooth, silky wine is seductive. The blueberry, black cherry and plum fruit has compelling complexity, further enhanced with flavors of coffee and toast from 14 months in French oak.

Dark and silky, this bursts open with ripe plum and black cherry fruit. Streaks of smoke and iron run through, along with highlights of bright citrus. Sweet toast and dark chocolate flavors wrap up a long and most satisfying finish. Drink now through 2024.

With five years of aging already, this Bordeaux-style blend is drinking quite beautifully. Complex layers of black cherry, cassis and spicy plum are matched to lightly charred barrel notes. Smoke, licorice, coffee and chocolate thread through an extended finish. Drink now or cellar until 2020.

This unique, port-style dessert wine fortifies its Marechal Foch, Cabernet Franc and Merlot base with walnut brandy. Smooth as silk, it has clearly benefitted from extra bottle age, and drinks like a dream. It’s loaded with lush and generous flavors of crème de cassis, toffee, coffee, maple syrup and caramel.